Altitude control system for indoor airship

Hello guys,

It has been a while..! I have been writing my MSc thesis and I completely forgot about the blog. Any case I have some good update. The thesis is complete and I suggest you to read it through to understand the techniques used to rule the altitude.

The whole thesis is available at the link http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201408221388

Nyton motor test

Today I did some voltage limiter with just two zener and a resistor to both motors.
Now they can work with the voltage provided by the battery pack without problems.
The video shows a sequence of orientations while the motor are spinning with a PWM modulation.It produces a noise that is a kind of irritating but I’m really glad that the things start working.
Nyton will be soon ready to fly!

Nyton beta payload test

Well.It seems that Nyton can load 135g!This is the effective load that make the baloon reach the equilibrium(almost).
This test is done with a box that weights 98g(screws included) and some nails that weights about 4,6g each.
I needed 8 nails + the box that is about 135g of load.
It means that the lifting force is equal to 0.135*g so about 1.3Netwon

 

 

Nyton beta test

Hello,

I have been busy and I didn’t write for a while.I’m ending the semester and I have been studying really hard.

Here in Tampere(Finland) days are getting shorter and shorter and the snow is covering the landscape.Santa is getting ready with the presents for all the good kids.

Anyway…my friend Juha Koljonen gave me the first present for Christmas.He has a great, home-made 3d printer and he managed to print some parts I designed with Solidworks.

I eventually found the time to glue the parts and proceed with some test.Well…I needed to fix the tollarances with a file but it seems to work as expected!

Here there is a video that shows how the attidute of the thrust can be chanded.It follows the simulation done with Solidworks.

Simulation becomes reality 🙂

Stay tuned!

Bill of materials

Hi!

It took a long time but eventually I have everything I ordered from the web.

The items I ordered are:

1)Balloon (Blimp, Silver)- 52″x37″  – 1X

2)Motor-7mm 3.3 Ohm – 2X

3)Propeller – 65mm – 2X

(from Plantraco Canada)

4)Pololu USB AVR Programmer – 1X

5)Baby Orangutan B-328 – 1X

6)Battery LiPo 2S/1P 7,4V 350 mAh 25C – 1X

7)Battery LiPo 2S/1P 7,4V 550 mAh 20C – 1X

8)Battery charge LiPo PolyCharge 12V – 1X

9)Ultrasonice range finder XL MaxSonar EZ2 – MB1220 – 1X

10)Micro Servo Hitec HS 55 – 1X

(from RobotStore.it)

11)Pan / tilt SPT50 mechanics – 1X

(from RobotShop.eu)

I wrote the number of items needed for the project but actually there are some backup parts.

There is the Helium misssing from the list because I’m working to find it to some local dealer.

Most likely I will have to buy some other small electrical components and find some wire.Anycase these are the main stuff I will need.

I received my stuff here in Tampere(FI) without problems from the european stores.I had to cope with some burocracy about the envelope coming from Canada.

In fact Tulli(finnish import agency) wanted me to provide: Evidence of my study activity, list of components in the package, declaration from the university department about my need of those parts and of course they checked my ID.

Maybe next time I will ask to a finnish friend to go in case of me.I may understand that a long black beard italian, with a deep voice and a Fonzie’s black leather jacket may look suspicious 🙂

After twice I have been at that office(lost in the industrial side of Tampere) I have been able to receive my package at home.

Now I’m working on it.

Stay tuned!

Nyton begins

Hi guys!

The last post was during the hot italian summer; I’m back to Finland where the air is chilly and it is easier to work 🙂

Considering I’m a student in Tampere University of Technology, I must write a Master Thesis before my graduation.To be honest I’m not a matematician so I prefer to build something that lives and moves.

I decided to start an ambitious project called Nyton.The name comes from the finnish words Nyt=Now and On=I am while the pronunciation is really close to the english Newton.

But….why on earth I invented this name?Newton discovered many laws that describes the motion of the bodies and their inertial actions.

By the way,what is Nyton?

Nyton is a small airship, designed to navigate indoor and determine his position with an inertial navigation system augmented by a tilt-pan ultrasonic range finder.

This is because every inertial system is subject to a drift proportional to the square of the working period.The indoor environment doesn’t allow a reliable GNSS fix, for this reason the mandatory fix has to be provided by other measurements.

Ok….there are tens of rc airships on internet that gave me the inspiration.For instance these are really good projects:

http://www.surveyor.com/YARB.html

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A44817

BUT…Nyton will go beyond!!!In fact there will not be any rc controller because He is not a game!

The main difference is that given a certain waypoint on a software, the airship will gather the destination via RF link and then He will pursuit the navigation task by his own. The definition for these kind of machines is UAV(Unmanned aerial vehicle)

The position will be held activelly within a maximum error.The aim of Nyton is not to navigate meaningless, instead this accurate position estimation can open many possibilities that I don’t want to reveal expressly.

I’m begining with the list of items to buy from many stores.I will keep you updated and let’s see how fool the idea will actually be 😉

Stay tuned!